New York Times: The US intelligence services identified the location of Khamenei and his aides and handed over the information to Israel

New York Times said that, US intelligence identified the location of Khamenei and his aides and handed over the information to Israel.

The CIA has been tracking Khamenei for months, increasing its confidence in his whereabouts and patterns of movements, and then the CIA learned that a meeting of senior Iranian officials would be held on Saturday morning at a leadership compound in the heart of Tehran, and more importantly, the agency learned that the Supreme Leader would be present at the site.

The United States and Israel decided to adjust the timing of their attack, in part to take advantage of new intelligence.

This information provided an opportunity for the two countries to achieve a decisive and early victory in the elimination of senior Iranian officials and the assassination of Khamenei.

The swift ouster of Iran’s Supreme Leader reflected the close coordination and intelligence sharing between the United States and Israel prior to the attack, and the in-depth intelligence the two countries gathered about the Iranian leadership, particularly in the aftermath of last year’s 12-Day War.

The operation showed the failure of Iranian leaders to take adequate precautions to avoid exposing themselves at a time when both Israel and the United States have sent clear signals of their readiness for war.

The CIA handed over its intelligence, which provided high accuracy on Khamenei’s position, to Israel.

Israel, using US intelligence and its own information, carried out an operation that had been planned for months: the assassination of senior Iranian leaders.

The governments of the United States and Israel, which had originally planned an airstrike at night under cover of darkness, decided to modify the timing of the operation to take advantage of information received from a meeting held on Saturday morning at the government compound in Tehran.

The leaders were scheduled to meet at the Iranian presidency, the Supreme Leader’s headquarters, and the headquarters of Iran’s National Security Council.

Israel had specified that the meeting would include senior Iranian defense officials, including Mohammad Bakbour, commander-in-chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Aziz Nasserzadeh, defense minister, Admiral Ali Shamkhani, head of the military council, Seyyed Majid Mousavi, commander of the IRGC’s air force, Mohammad Shirazi, deputy minister of intelligence, and others.

The operation began around 6 am Israel time, with fighter jets taking off from their bases, and the raid required relatively few aircraft, but was armed with long-range, high-precision munitions.

Two hours and five minutes after takeoff, at around 9:40 am Tehran time, the long-range missiles hit the complex.

At the time of the attack, senior Iranian national security officials were in one of the compound buildings, while Khamenei was in another nearby building.

In a letter seen by the New York Times, an Israeli defense official said: “This morning’s strike was carried out simultaneously on several locations in Tehran, one of which housed prominent figures in Iran’s political and security leadership”.

An Israeli defense official said in a letter seen by the New York Times: Despite Iran’s preparations for war, Israel managed to achieve a tactical surprise with its attack on the compound.

During that 12-day war, the United States became more familiar with how the Supreme Leader and the Revolutionary Guards communicated and their movements under pressure, according to the former official, and the United States used that knowledge to hone its ability to track Khamenei and predict his movements.

The United States and Israel have gathered specific information about the locations of senior Iranian intelligence officers, and have targeted sites where intelligence chiefs were staying in subsequent raids following the attack on the headquarters on Saturday.

Meanwhile, Iran’s top intelligence official survived, but the leaders of Iran’s intelligence services suffered heavy losses.